OPINION: Afganistan remains a dismal country after 12 years of Western occupation. A United Nations report finds that it is once again becoming a narco-state, with a huge rise in opium poppy cultivation. Corruption is rampant. The Karzai Government controls only a small part of the country. Torture is widely used. The Western intervention in Afghanistan, in which New Zealand played an important role, comes to a dismal end.

The invasion of the country after September 11 was justified and New Zealand was right to back it. The Taliban Government was sheltering Al Qaeda, the terrorist group which had committed the outrage in New York. The United States and its Western partners were justified in responding.

2 Responses to “Afghanistan-venture-an-exercise-in-futility”

Thanks Mike for alerting us to the tired propaganda re 911 as the casus belli for our involvement in Afghanistan 🙁

Dear Editor

I agree NZ’s involvement in Afghanistan has proven utterly futile (DomPost
20/1/14). However, there are now no excuses for the continued use of 911
as a justification for this immoral action. The war in Iraq has already
shown how easily governments can be lead into war based on propaganda and
false evidence. 911 is a deception on a much larger scale.

Many people now realise that 911 has not been properly investigated by any
real court of law and no hard evidence has been produced by the Taleban or
the US to implicate Afghanistan in these attacks. The 911 commission heads
have admitted that they were set up to fail; the so called “masterminds”
have also been tortured, and do not expect any sort of “trial “to start
until 2016.

Meanwhile, there is a growing mood of international outrage at the
substantial body of forensic evidence collected, analysed and presented by
thousands of experts that clearly demonstrates explosive controlled
demolition of the twin towers and the 47 storey skyscraper (WTC 7) not hit
by a plane on 911. There must be an independent inquiry as the official
911 narrative has not only legitimised our involvement in Afghanistan but
has also resulted in widespread domestic spying that threatens our hard-won
democratic freedoms, civil rights and privacy.

One of the pillars of democracy is the existence a press that does not merely act as stenographer and mouthpiece for governments, but to dig, expose and inform, and when necessary for public good, to embarrass those in authority.

Your recent editorial “Afghanistan venture an exercise in futility” showed little evidence of this sacred role. The invasion of Afghanistan was purportedly justified by the attacks on New York and Washington on September 11th, 2001. Since that day it has been clearly established by scientists that the official account of 911 is false.

To take just one example, an analysis of the collapse of Building 7 by physicist David Chandler showed that 2 seconds of its collapse was at free-fall speed. The government body that issued the report on the collapse, the National Institute of Science and Technology, has accepted this. The only possible way for this to happen is for all resistance across the entire cross section to be simultaneously removed by controlled demolition.

Despite this proof, the media timorously refuse to inform the public of this now well-documented fact. Could it be that the implications are simply too disturbing for the tender stomachs of the public?